The Voice of Fate
by KiyumiArashi
Summary: If you could know your fate-for sure-would you fight it, or submit? Neji discovers a Hyuuga Branch secret that could determine the course of his life. Which is stronger, fate or free will?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_ or any related characters. They are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.**

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**The Voice of Fate**

_Prologue_

"The knowledge of fate is a great and terrible thing," the dark-haired woman said, her voice echoing in the catacombs beneath her clan's dwellings. "I am trapped, held to my course… my actions are no longer my own…" she murmured, her voice breaking.

Painting complex seals into a scroll, an ancient sage nodded gravely. "You wish to be rid of this burden. I do not blame you." Solemnly, he looked into her pale eyes. "When this is done, I will hide the scroll where it cannot be found. We cannot understand the paths of fate. They are not for us to know."

The woman knelt as the sage finished the scroll. Spreading it on the tiled floor, the sage began the ceremony. Smoke and noise filled the room as the woman cried out, her cry shattering into a thousand whispering voices.

When the ceremony was over, the voice of fate had been sealed. The woman silently thanked the sage, who took the scroll and its secret deep into the darkness, where he hoped no Hyuuga would ever come again.

-X-

_Chapter 1_

"Fourteen… fifteen…" Neji counted quietly as he trained his Byakugan on the ground beneath his feet. The young jounin stood in the shadows of the trees in the forest outside Konoha.

"Large animal burrow, fifteen meters down," he muttered, "probably a family of badgers. Not occupied at the moment, but not abandoned." Neji extended his vision another ten meters underground before stopping to rest. He had been practicing for nearly two weeks to extend his vision underground. The first thing Neji had noticed was that the density of the earth posed a challenge.

Although the Byakugan saw clearly through water and earth as well as through the air, Neji had learned that different techniques were needed when looking through different substances. When using the Byakugan to look through water, he had to focus on a smaller area to minimize distortion, and he had to take in less light to account for reflection. On his first try, he had miscalculated badly, resulting in a blinding green spot in the center of his vision for an hour. Swearing not to make another such mistake, he gradually learned to judge the amount of reflection using only his eyes before activating his Byakugan.

Looking down into the earth required a different set of techniques. Neji found that these worked best in the shade, where his eyes could take in as much light as possible without glare from sunlight. Resuming his practice, he restricted his Byakugan to a five-meter radius and stared at the ground.

"Ten… twenty… twenty-five…" He focused harder. "Thirty… thirty-five… thirty-seven!" This was the deepest he had reached so far. Neji held his focus there for a moment. Something wasn't quite right. Thirty-seven meters down, the earth seemed… shimmery. It seemed like something down there was shifting from his gaze. The more he tried to look at it, the harder it was to see, as though it was avoiding the Byakugan. He switched tactics and focused on a point slightly to the right of the object. The blurriness was still there, but the shimmering effect had gone. Neji could tell that the object was quite large and extended roughly in a straight line, like a wall. Focusing again on the object, Neji was sure that the blurry shimmer had returned. That was it. He had to find out what this thing was and how—and more importantly, why—it was shielded from his Byakugan.

He began to follow the line of the object, heading toward Konoha. As he approached the wall of Konoha, the shimmering shield around the object widened and seemed to camouflage itself. Neji grunted in frustration. He had lost it. Quickly, he traced his path back to where he had started and began to follow the object in the other direction. _This could be some enemy technique to undermine our security, _Neji thought. _I will report it as soon as I return._

"Closer to the surface here," Neji muttered. He looked around, memorizing his location. He was in the heart of the forest west of Konoha. The object was slanting up toward the surface, only a few meters underground now. Within a few steps Neji had located the beginning of the object, just below the surface. Neji considered reporting the object to Konoha headquarters immediately, but shook his head. _Better to find out what it is now so I'll have something solid to report._ His mouth twitched at the thought of inadvertently reporting a common sewage pipe. He focused his Byakugan on the end of the object closest to the surface, and then nearly deactivated his Byakugan in surprise.

A human form was carved onto a stone surface in relief. Its arms and legs were outstretched and it wore traditional Hyuuga robes. What surprised Neji the most was the Caged Bird seal on its forehead. Was this some sort of grave? Neji knew the funeral customs of his clan and was sure this was not the case. Frowning, he made sure no one was nearby and began forming hand seals.

"Earth Technique: Hidden Veil Open!" Neji grimaced at having to use a technique that hadn't been approved by the Hyuuga clan. However, it worked well in this case. The earth peeled back around the stone slab and Neji was able to see it clearly. The carved Branch member was female, and she wore a look of resignation on her face. Neji hated that look. He had seen it before on older Branch members' faces. The look that said, _I have given up. This is my fate._ He turned his eyes away from the stone face and looked at its body. Veins throughout the stone mimicked the chakra coils and Tenketsu points visible to the Byakugan. The array was familiar enough that Neji instantly deduced that this must be the mechanism for a hidden door. "Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms," Neji said to himself. He proceeded to strike the stone figure, releasing his chakra into the stone veins.

As he struck the final blow, the stone slab gave way and slowly sank into the ground, opening a dark passageway. Using his Byakugan, Neji could tell that the vaulted stone passage led toward Konoha and the Hyuuga compound. He briefly considered returning to headquarters before exploring. This might be an important discovery. Scanning the long passage with his Byakugan, Neji made his decision. If this was a Hyuuga Branch secret, it was something he needed to investigate. Neji made his way into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_ or any related characters. They are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.**

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_Chapter 2_

Although the passageway was dark, Neji could both feel and see the hum of chakra coursing around him. It was visible as a faintly glowing mist, blowing gently from deeper in the passageway. Neji fought the urge to shudder as he felt his own seal respond to this chakra. The ordinarily inert seal felt warm and then very cold. Ignoring the twisting feeling in his gut, Neji steeled himself and continued on.

He soon reached a part of the passage that was more elaborate than the plain stone hallway near the entrance. The left wall was lined with enormous seals that spread from floor to ceiling and were repeated along the wall every few meters. Neji studied them for a moment. The seals had the same shimmering quality as the shield he had detected. He decided that these seals must be camouflaging the tunnel on the outside. His Byakugan functioned well inside the tunnel, however. Neji decided that the builders must have been very familiar with the Byakugan's workings in order to construct a precise shield of this magnitude.

Drawing his attention away from the seals, he focused on the other wall. The right wall of the passage was covered with tiny ceramic tiles in many colors, forming a large mosaic. Several people were depicted, nearly life-size, wearing clothing that looked unfamiliar. Neji noticed that the man in the center had the Byakugan. As Neji moved slowly down the passageway, he watched the procession of images on his right. The next mosaic showed several people with the Byakugan, along with a few children. Neji knew that this was the founding of the Hyuuga clan. He watched the mosaics with renewed interest. The Hyuuga house members all seemed happy and at peace, and they needed no identifying symbols other than their white eyes.

Everything changed in the next image. The Hyuugas were separated into two groups, one depicted higher on the wall than the other. Neither group looked happy; both looked stern. One of the men in the higher group was pointing at the people below him with a look of disdain. Neji's jaw tensed as this depiction of the split between the Main and the Branch Houses. The man was Hyuuga Hiroshi, and he had been anything but "generous" as his name implied. Neji knew what he would see in the next image. He looked anyway.

The Caged Bird seal stared him in the face. It was portrayed even larger than Neji's outstretched arms, its hooked lines wickedly clear. Below it, smaller human figures were shown in states of pain and suffering. Neji's face grew grim. Whoever had depicted the scene held no love for the Hyuuga class system. Neither had he. Giving the seal a last smoldering glance, Neji continued walking.

He had come a long way by now. Considering how long it had taken him to pass the murals, Neji concluded that he was probably directly beneath the place where he had first located the passage. His chakra reserves would allow him to maintain his Byakugan until he could reach the end of the tunnel and investigate before he would have to return. Neji had nearly forgotten about reporting to the Hokage. Somehow, the thought didn't sit well with him. Now that he had seen these depictions of his clan literally plastered across the wall, he felt as though this place wasn't meant to be shared with the village. It was a Branch family secret, just as he had surmised earlier. Neji drew to a halt as he reached another set of mosaics and realized there was more to this Branch secret than he thought.

The next set of mosaics contained another history. However, this time it wasn't a story that Neji knew. In the first image, a Main House member that Neji didn't recognize was placing the Caged Bird seal on a young girl's forehead. The girl's dark hair was cut short like his cousin Hinata's had been when she was that age. The second image was puzzling. The girl stood alone in the center of the picture, but she was surrounded with what looked like swirls of smoke. Her mouth was opened to speak. What stood out to Neji was her seal, which had changed dramatically from the previous image. A blank circle had appeared in the center of the seal, while the four arms radiating from the center had curved. Two arms curved toward the left, their tips nearly meeting, and two arms curved toward the right in the same way. Neji frowned. Branch members' seals did not change shape. They were unalterable. And yet, this one had apparently been different. This seal resembled an eye.

Shaking his head, Neji continued to examine the mosaic. He noticed symbols above the girl's head, surrounded by more swirls of smoke that seemed to come from her mouth. The symbols showed grain, an infant, and crossed shinobi weapons. Perhaps the girl was speaking about these things. Neji's eyes drifted to the next frame. It showed three events. First, civilians harvested grain from a field. Then, a mother and father held an infant. On the far left, two shinobi were locked in combat. Looking back at the girl with the altered seal, Neji understood. "She predicted these things," he murmured, his eyes flicking between the two mosaics. "Then they came true."

He strode quickly down the passage, skimming over other events the girl had predicted as she grew older. He needed to know what had happened to her in the end.

There. After the series of fulfilled predictions, a scene unfolded that was entirely different. The dark-haired girl was a woman now, her hair long and loose, her face beautiful but very sad. She knelt before a sage who wore yellow robes. A complex seal was painted on the ground around the woman. Swirls still drifted up from her mouth, but they collected into a single large spiral above the two figures. The next mosaic simply showed a large, open scroll with one kanji framed within it. _Fate. _

Here the mosaics ended, and Neji stepped from the passageway into a vast underground library.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own** _**Naruto**_ **or any related characters. They are the property of Masashi Kishimoto.**

_Chapter 3_

Neji's Byakugan took merely a moment to adjust to the sudden space all around him. The room was large and circular, with a shallow, domed ceiling. Heavy stone formed the walls and floor, and carved stone shelves radiated from the room's center, holding hundreds of scrolls. The very air felt weighted in Neji's lungs, making breathing an effort. Everything felt saturated with ancient chakra. Neji could still see the faintly swirling mist coming from deeper within the library. Wary of traps, Neji approached the closest shelf.

No traps were evident. It seemed that the library's location had been enough to guard against theft or vandalism. Even if the entrance had been found, an advanced knowledge of Hyuuga techniques would have been necessary to unseal the passageway. Walking silently between the shelves, Neji withdrew a scroll from the shelf on his left. The leather casing felt brittle in his hand, attesting to its age. Tiny cracks spidered across the leather and through the words etched on the case. Neji's brow furrowed as he read the title, _Elemental Juuken: Techniques and Applications_. Intrigued, Neji slipped the scroll into his bag and selected another. _Advanced Byakugan Shielding_. This one he opened, skimming its contents. Faded kanji and diagrams demonstrated seals that could block the Byakugan's activity. Remembering the camouflaged passageway, Neji peered up at the ceiling, noticing the network of seals that painted the shallow dome in pulsing chakra. This place had been sealed specifically against the Byakugan.

His interest peaked, Neji scanned the scroll for more information. Apparently, shielding seals altered the flow of chakra in their environment, causing ambient chakra from nearby living things to flow around the shielded object rather than bouncing off of it. The effect was similar to the soft feathers on an owl's wing, diverting the flow of air against the wing into tiny currents that silenced the owl's flight. Seals like these were extremely useful for hiding small objects, which could be completely concealed, while large objects were obscured by a shimmering effect.

Narrowing his eyes, Neji pictured the possible effects of these seals in battle. Ordinary shuriken could be rendered invisible to the Byakugan, but visible to the naked eye. Clothing that was sealed could block the Byakugan's view of the chakra coils, making Gentle Fist strokes a matter of guesswork. It was no wonder these seals were a closely guarded secret. The odd thing was that the seals weren't used more often. Neji couldn't think of a single Hyuuga who used shielding seals like these. He slid the scroll back into its leather case and silently determined to master its contents.

Continuing into the center of the library, Neji found himself at the edge of a strange discovery. Here, the stone floor had been cracked violently, fissures spreading out from one undamaged stone in the center of the room. Neji vaulted quickly to the undamaged center, his Byakugan already deciphering the patterns in the stone. All around him, the stone floor was raked with scorched, blackened grooves. In his mind, Neji began to piece together the arrangement, noting the damage, deciphering the cause. The violent cracks had definitely been caused by a powerful force. The scorches cut cleanly into the stones, the blackened strokes clearly defined. Neji noted the absence of charring around the edges, along with the brutally purposeful angles. These grooves hadn't been burned by fire; they had been burned by _chakra_. The scarred stones were the relics of a powerful ancient seal.

Something terrible had been sealed here, beyond the eyes of the Main House. A seal this large could have bound a demon, or removed a person's soul from his body. Judging from the chakra that saturated the air, Neji suspected that whatever had been sealed was still within the library. Heat was returning to the seal on his forehead, along with a disgusting writhing sensation, as though a parasitic worm were crawling across his skin. His senses on edge, Neji quickly pinpointed the source of the chakra flow.

At the far end of the room stood a low stone altar, faintly glowing with chakra. Approaching the altar, Neji examined it with his Byakugan. The top was smooth and covered with kanji, but the sides of the altar were carved with twisting vines and dragons, masking the fact that the altar itself appeared to be hollow. Chakra seeped steadily from behind the shielding seals blocking Neji's view of whatever was inside. Carefully, Neji ran his fingers through the dust, brushing it away from the altar's surface. Colored enamel had flaked away from the stone in places, but the kanji written on top of the altar were still legible. Breathing out slowly, Neji read the ancient script.

_This altar is dedicated to Fate, the All-Powerful, the Unknowable, the Unchangeable. Within this altar rests the Voice of Fate, sealed by Kimura Sennin, who removed it from its former vessel, Hyuuga Hitomi. May this be its eternal tomb. _

"'The Voice of Fate,'" Neji mused, "something that had to be sealed… hidden beneath Konoha…" Briefly running through his knowledge of the world's demons and spirits, Neji was unable to think of one that had dealings with the Hyuuga. Nonplussed, he examined the carved sides for evidence of an opening. He tapped a likely spot with a spike of chakra, and a small door clicked open. Glaringly bright chakra flowed suddenly from the opened altar, bathing Neji in uncomfortable heat. His seal twisted sharply, rebelling against the foreign chakra, before settling back to its inert state.

As the wave of chakra subsided, Neji's Byakugan detected a scroll in a leather case similar to the ones he had found earlier. Neji swiftly removed the scroll, immediately placing it on the altar before inspecting it. The glow of chakra had faded, leaving an ordinary scroll bound by a complex seal. Inked lines extended from the main seal like a spider's legs, wrapping around the back of the scroll. The seal was calm, no longer pulsing with chakra now that it was in the open. It seemed harmless enough. Gingerly, Neji lifted the scroll from the altar. No wave of chakra; no reaction from his seal.

Feeling his chakra reserves diminishing, Neji knew he had to return to the surface before his Byakugan deactivated. Contemplating his options, Neji decided to take the scroll with him. He placed it in his bag along with the other two scrolls and began walking back. He would close the passageway, but he hoped to return here sometime soon. For now, he would settle for studying the scrolls he had chosen. Branch secrets belonged to Branch members, and he would keep it that way.


End file.
